Max Caulfield and the Neverending Sleepover
by AntiChri5
Summary: Max goes to extremes she never thought possible and sacrifices herself to create a new timeline where she never left Arcadia Bay, giving her younger self a simple opportunity. To be there for Chloe, during the hardest time of her life. Because Farewell's ending cannot be allowed to stand.
1. A Future In Flames

Max stood in the bland hotel room, looking into her younger self's red rimmed eyes in the mirror and trying to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. After more than a year of research and planning there was a lot to forget, and it wasn't like she had been able to bring a note book.

First, she needed to get changed. Crossing the room to the bag she was supposed to be checking, before this Max had taken one of her first selfies, she opened it up and started rifling through it's contents in search of appropriate attire. It took her a good while. 13 year old Max hadn't exactly chosen her wardrobe for blending in while committing crimes.

After eventually settling on black jeans and a navy hoodie over a grey shirt, Max stripped out of her formal black dress. The only thing she had to wear to a funeral. Thank god she had only had to wear it twice.

But, if this went according to plan, only one of those would be a part of this reality.

Dressing as quickly as she could, Max opened the door and surveyed her first obstacle.

The shimmering, burnt orange distortion which marked the boundary of her photo-jump. Everyone would perceive it differently, according to legend. Because it wasn't actually there. The barrier was a defence mechanism, her power's way of keeping her mind from breaking at the attempt to interact with too much of the world too far back. And so, filtered through the psyche of a photographer, it looked like burning film.

Max placed her hand against the barrier, shuddering at the sensation. Relatively recent sources referred to it with terms like "psychic strain". Older ones referred to it as "The Witch's Burden". Max had had to force herself to finish that particular mouldy old tome.

Warren had a different term. "Temporal backlash."

Whatever it was called, it was like chewing off her own arm.

More then simple pain. A tense, queasy, feeling of wrongness. Knowing she was damaging herself irreparable, every self-preservation instinct of her mind and body shrieking at her to stop.

She took a step forward, shuddering as more of her body made contact.

Everything other then the pain was forgotten now, eclipsed by the sheer scale of the agony burning through her small form. Max would have screamed, if her body hadn't locked up so completely it refused to respond.

Whatever it felt like, it was what was keeping her from saving Chloe.

Yes, it hurt, but Max had come to know pain. Not even this bone deep agony could compare to returning to that bathroom, knowing Chloe's last memory of Max as she bled out, abandoned one last time, would be her leaving from William's funeral. Because this fire raging through her was temporary. It wasn't a pain she would have to live with, a permanent change to who she was as she spent day after day with the image of Chloe standing by her father's grave, broken and alone, burned into her brain as she tried to think of any way a mere text or letter could do a thing to help. And knowing that her silence was even worse. This was nothing compared to the shimmering hatred she had felt begin to fester, as she watched the town Chloe saved forget about her.

With a deep _wrenching_ somewhere in her brain, something inside her breaking between the unstoppable force that was her love for Chloe and the immovable object that was the boundary enforcing the laws of time, Max stepped over the threshold and into the hallway.

Max smiled and spat the blood out of her mouth.

Part one of the plan had gone off without a hitch.

* * *

Getting transportation had proved easier then Max suspected. Arcadia Bay was a small enough town that a little girl stealing cars would have been big news, so the few people who noticed her peering in windows and preparing to put the skills Frank had taught her to use simply thought it part of some childish game. It helped that she and Chloe had gotten up to stupider things, in their antics.

Getting the rest of the of what she needed had been even easier. It turned out an innocent looking little girl could get away with a ridiculous amount, if she was confident and collected enough to avoid giving herself away.

The sun had set less then an hour ago, and the sky was already dark enough that her crime would be noticed fast. Raising her hand, Max fell back into the familiar flow of her power as time unwound around her. It had been so long. The power flowed easily, not overtaxed as it had been during the last times of the week which gave her the power but cost her everything. Max watched the clock wind back until it was one minute after her parents had asked her to grab the last of her stuff from the hotel room before they left Arcadia for good.

Getting out of her stolen car, Max retrieved her gear from the trunk and crossed the road, walking past the " **FOR SALE"** sign. It hadn't been updated. Good. She had been fairly sure the sale wasn't finalized until later, but it was nice to have more evidence of that. She didn't want to have to bankrupt her family.

The house was all locked up, but she knew it in the way only someone who had lived in a house for years could know it. She knew which floor boards would betray the presence of a teenage girl wandering around the house listlessly, too anxious to sleep but too tired to do anything else. She knew which window would unlatch if you pushed hard on the lower right corner and rattled it _just right_. She knew Mrs Henderson next door was the only one with a view of that window, and she had her weekly card game down the road right now. She knew which room would have the best light in the morning, and which were hard to see in at night.

Max was grateful that the house was empty, barren of furniture. It was so much easier to see it as just a house, that way. Not the home that had sheltered her during the most vulnerable time of her life.

She went room to room, ignoring memories in each one as she did what she came to. It really had been a wonderful home. She had had a good life, here. Her biggest issues had been in her head.

But she knew where that future led. No matter how many good memories it held, how many good moments it would have, it would never be worth it. _Could_ never be worth it.

Max checked her watch and lit the match, dropping the tiny flame to the gasoline soaked carpet.

She didn't stay to watch her Seattle home burn.

Max put the empty gasoline cannister back in the trunk, next to the three full ones and was back in her stolen car, speeding away, before the flames were visible from outside the house.

* * *

Parking her car at the third house her parents considered purchasing in Seattle, Max repeated her routine. Rewind until it was a minute since the last one got a visit from a mysterious arsonist, go in, torch the place, drive off. It had been easier with these last two. They weren't even memories to her, just addresses on a list, places her parents mentioned considering before deciding on their new home. Thank god none of them had been occupied.

But the success of part two meant it was time for the worst part of her plan. Pulling up at her target, Max cleaned the blood from under her nose with deliberate care. The long rewinds had taken their toll, but she couldn't afford to leave DNA behind.

It was a good thing she had so much time.

Unsurprisingly, Andrew was the last to leave the office, walking out the glass doors towards his parked car. He loved his job in a way very few people _could_ love selling houses. That was what made this so difficult. He was exactly the kind of man who would still go into work the day after being handed five million dollars. Max had researched him very thoroughly, eager for any excuse to make this easy, but the worst thing she had discovered about him was his habit of wearing socks with sandals. He was just a good man, without much of a social life, who genuinely loved finding and providing the perfect home for a person or family.

Max stepped out of the shadows behind him and broke his knee with a wrench.

As he screamed and fell to the floor, Max brought the wrench down again on his elbow, shuddering at the crack and scream that accompanied another breaking bone.

Andrew wouldn't be selling houses any time soon.

Picking up the last can of gasoline, Max shattered the glass door with her wrench and made her way into the office.

No one who worked here would be.

It had only taken one hour with a stolen laptop to make investments in Andrew's name that would, in time, more then cover his medical bills. A time traveller with time to do their research and prepare in advance could accomplish a lot, even with a lower middle class 13 year old's pathetic savings. It would still take a lifetime to get the screams out of her head.

Max was oddly relieved that she wouldn't have to bear that burden for long.

Part three was complete, god forgive her.

Getting back in her car, Max began the long drive back to Arcadia Bay. To Chloe.

* * *

Part four of her plan was always going to be the hardest. It was so tempting to skip ahead and make sure part five was out of the way, but part four was the most important. Part one had simply been about getting the opportunity to carry out part's two and three. As awful as those were, they were all carried out for the sole purpose of creating a situation where part four was possible. It would be a lot easier to convince her parents to let her stay in Arcadia Bay if there was no home waiting for her in Seattle.

Everything had been leading to this.

Max made her way back to her hotel room, past the astonished parents who had been looking for her for hours. Closing herself back up in her room and leaning against the door, Max grit her teeth to ignore her parents attempts to get in.

Once more, Max rewound. The ease with which it had come was now gone – she had never tried to rewind so much time and she had been doing it so frequently. Over a year of rest had been undone in a single day of intense rewinding.

Eyes on her watch, Max ended the rewind a minute after she had finished her crime spree. With all her travel and preparation time rewound away it would appear, to the outside world, as if three empty houses and an office were set on fire while a man was assaulted, all in five minutes as part of some sort of co-ordinated attack. And Max Caulfield never left her hotel room.

Max reached up to wipe the blood from her eyes.

And frowned in surprise when her left arm failed to respond.

It hung at her side limply, no matter how hard she tried to move it.

So she did the best she could to clean up with the one trembling hand.

Then Max grit her teeth and knocked on the door to her parents hotel room.

Her fathers face was solemn as he opened the door.

"Max, honey, do you need help gathering the last of your things?"

"No. We need to talk."

Ryan Caulfield nodded calmly.

"I have been expecting something like this," he stepped back and gestured at the small table and chairs in the room. "Take a seat." Vanessa moved over from where she had been putting the last of her things away.

After collapsing into a chair, Max wasted no time.

"I can't leave. Not now. Not like this."

"Max, I know that this is beyond tragic, but we have a whole knew life waiting for us in Seattle. I start my new job next week. Your mother a week after. You are already enrolled in a new school. This isn't…you aren't abandoning her. It's just…life"

"I didn't say anything about you and mum. You guys can go, start that new life. But I'm staying." Max kept her tone calm and even, hoping her parents would find it mature.

"Max, you are thirteen years old! You don't get to decide that kind of thing yourself." Her mother frowned at her father's tone and Max noted it.

Her mother had always been prone to babying her. She would respond well to emotional appeals, but was far less likely to allow Max to live in a different city. Her father, by contrast, was less gentle if no less loving. An emotional appeal wouldn't work. But he respected independence. She just had to find an argument for it that wouldn't seem like she was contradicting his authority.

"I know, dad, that's why this is a conversation and not an explanation."

That came out a little firmer then she wanted, but it kind of worked. Ryan leaned back with a raised eyebrow and a calmer expression. Parental authority respected.

"Maxine, you can't be serious," Vanessa shook her head.

"I can't leave her like this. I _can't_. She has been my closest friend for as long as I can remember. Whenever I have been down, my every moment of weakness, Chloe has been there for me. If something happened to one of you, _nothing_ would be able to drag her away."

Success. Her mothers eyes misted and she looked away.

"Max, as important as friendship is sometimes you need to look out for yourself. You can't just put your life on hold and leave your family to play amateur therapist. Chloe needs real help. Not someone almost as traumatized as she is digging into her life."

Fuck. Progress with her mother but a setback with her father. She needed to do as much as she could to get them on board before they found out about the house. If only she had more time, she could have waited until after they found out there was no home waiting for her in Seattle. That would have made this so much easier.

"Yeah dad, let's talk about me. You are the one who is always talking about how important this part of my life is. How it can decide who I am for decades to come. What will leaving Chloe like this do to me? Who will it make me? Will I be someone you can be proud of, dad, abandoning my closest friend when she needs me most?"

Ryan sighed, rubbing at his eyes. "Max, I can tell you have put a lot of time and thought into this and…I will admit I am impressed at how…..assertive you are being. I didn't think you had it in you. I wish there was another solution, I really do. There are still weekends. I promise to drive you down at least once a month. But….."

"…..you are _thirteen_ ," her mother continued.

God damnit. Max had to resist the urge to shout that she wasn't. Soon enough she would be gone, for good, and thirteen year old Max would be back in the driver's seat. It was her job to prepare the way, give this Max enough time with Chloe that she would know how badly she was needed and that she _could_ help. So that she would fight tooth and nail to be there for Chloe.

"I'm not going to be trying to get my own apartment or anything! I have spent half my life in Chloe's house. It's less change then if I went with you."

Vanessa shook her head sadly. "Max, I know that this is hard-"

"- You have no fucking idea how badly leaving like this breaks me!"

Max grit her teeth as her parents looked at her in shock. Fuck. This wasn't likely to help.

Her arm might not be responding, but she didn't need it. She had rewound while tied to a chair and being abused by a psychopath. Her own body giving out wasn't going to stop her. She closed her eyes and fell back into the familiar currents, rewinding away the outburst and trying a different argument.

She made some progress, before blundering again. When she rewound it away and opened her eyes, she almost jumped from shock. Opening her eyes had made no difference. She clawed at her face frantically, not finding any surprise blindfold to remove. She swung her head from side to side, Opened and closed her eyes. And then, resigned, she rewound away her reaction to discovering her blindness.

She would just have to fake it.

And so she did, trying out argument after argument in increasing desperation. Rewinding to avoid blunders, rephrase arguments, pre-empt her parents arguments and to use information gained to get any edge she could, as she had so long ago at Blackwell.

Trying to find that perfect combination of words to make her parents see things her way.

She never found it.

Her body failed her bit by bit. Arms, eyes, legs. Before long Max couldn't even shake with terror at her self-inflicted damage. She didn't give up until the sounds her parents made were an indistinct murmuring, until her own mouth could no longer form words. She had driven her body far beyond what it could bear. There was simply nothing left to work with.

So Max finally admit defeat, with communication rendered impossible. She didn't notice as her parents rushed to her, frantic to stem the blood she couldn't feel flowing from her every orifice. She didn't notice being rushed to the hospital. She had already slipped into a coma by the time the doctors started trying to diagnose her.

Because she had failed. She had failed part four and hadn't even started part five of her precious fucking plan.

And so Max Caulfield, photographer, time master and partner in crime, died.

Her last thoughts were of Chloe.


	2. Miracle Max

Chloe Price sat in a sterile hospital room and wondered how the world could end in a single week, with no one noticing or caring.

It had been four days since her father's funeral. Since Max fell into a coma. Three days since Chloe went from listening to a recorded message endlessly to rushing to the hospital. Two day since she was sneaking around, listening at doors to try and find out what had happened to her first mate.

Then, in a meeting between Max's parents and the Doctor's that she wasn't supposed to be hearing, amid a sea of indecipherable medical jargon there had been one term which had been as direct as a knife in the gut.

Braindead.

Her Max, her best friend, sidekick on a hundred adventures and lead role on a thousand more, was gone. She was lying right there, pale and freckled and so damn cute, but she was _gone_.

Chloe hadn't left Max's bedside since finding out. Nurses, doctors and security staff had cajoled begged and threatened. She hadn't even noticed. Eventually, they left her alone. It wasn't like she was causing trouble. She just sat there, eyes fixed on Max's still form. Refusing to even blink until her burning eyes forced her to.

She wasn't going to take her eyes off Max. Off what was left of Max. The empty shell in the hospital bed might not be much, but it was all had. She had already lost so much.

Maybe if she was patient enough Max would….wait, no. Chloe couldn't just wait around. She always got such good grades, maybe if she went back to school and studied and studied and studied she could figure this out. So much about the human brain still wasn't understood. It would take years, but maybe she could make some breakthrough and…

Maybe.

Maybe maybe maybe.

Maybe if she found a dark altar in a hidden temple and sacrificed a fucking virgin whatever vicious god had taken over Chloe's life would relent for a fucking minute and _**give her back.**_

She didn't even realize she had spoken the last part aloud until she heard her voice bouncing back at her.

It was enough to break the floodgates.

Chloe hunched over, burying her head in Max's lap as she sobbed out a simple refrain. Three words, repeated over and over and over in a desperate plea.

"…give her back give her back give her back giveherbackgiveherbackgiveherback…"

Chloe had never been religious. She never had anything against religion, she just wasn't raised with any particular faith. So it wasn't a prayer she sent out, there was no god or specific entity she hoped would hear or answer.

It was just a general plea, to a world that had been so very beautiful until so very recently. A child's cry that the "real world" she had spent so long hearing about not be _this_ hard, _this_ brutal. That it show a little mercy, and not take _everything_.

The gentle hand running through her hair almost stopped Chloe's heart. And then the _voice_. That beautifully familiar voice.

"I'm so sorry Chloe. So, so sorry." Max said gently.

Chloe blinked the tears from her eyes, gaping up at her best friend. Her miracle.

"Max?" She whispered.

"Yeah Chloe? Uhm, why am I in the hospital?"

"Max! Max Max Max! MaxMaxMaxMaxMaxMaxMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX!"

Chloe threw her arms around her friend, pulling her into a close hug.

* * *

"What do you mean, _you don't know_?"

Chloe found it hard to blame the doctor for flinching in the face of Ryan's fury. They were in the doctor's office for a meeting Chloe was only included in due to her steadfast refusal to let go of Max's hand.

"I _mean_ that unless your daughter has two minds in that head of hers this is medically impossible!"

"How about you stop making nonsensical statements about my daughter's mind and _use your own_ to figure out what happened! One minute you are telling me that she is braindead and the next that she is perfectly fine. When I ask what caused this you just shrug and say " _stress?_ ". Whywas it _a question_ , Doc? And your best advice for treatment is to keep her calm and stress free? We are moving to a new city to a house that was just torched by some random fucking arsonist and one of the family's closest friends just died. We are all _pretty fucking stressed_."

Vanessa placed her hands on her husband's shoulders, kissing the back of his head and looking to the doctor.

"Would it be better for Max to avoid change, right now?"

Ryan looked up in shock.

"'You can't be talking about what Max brought up at the hotel, 'Nessa?"

She nodded. "With everything that has happened….I think we should call Joyce, love."

* * *

Chloe glanced at Max, who shrugged. Apparently, the last thing Max remembered was arriving at the hotel and taking a picture of herself. Whatever this conversation was, Max wouldn't be filling in the blanks for her.

Max frowned in her sleep, the crease in her brow barely visible in the faint light filtering in through Chloe's window. In the near darkness, Chloe's room was transformed. The unfamiliar shapes that were the various boxes and bundles containing Max's possessions should have been strange and threatening, transformed into intruders by the poor visibility.

Instead they were treasured reminders of the impossible stroke of luck she had had. The unbelievable arrangement her mother had come to with Max's parents, even if they had been sure to stress that it was temporary.

The deal which meant her best friend was in bed curled around her, where she would stay for at least a month. She and Chloe had talked for hours, hands intertwined as Max's eyes got heavier and heavier.

Until she had fallen asleep literally on top of Chloe, who had settled back and attempted to join her. She had had such a hard time sleeping, lately, and she was still a long way away from being okay. But with every warm minty breath that puffed out of Max's mouth and across Chloe's cheek, the tense knot of emotion that had been in her chest since the moment her mother got home from the grocery store lessened, just the tiniest fraction.

Chloe slipped into a gentle, dreamless sleep.


	3. Nothing to say

_**One month since the death of William Price.**_

Max woke slowly with early morning light filtering in through Chloe's window and onto the two girls under the covers. Turning to face her friend, Max did her best not to show the stab of pity she felt when she saw Chloe staring up at the ceiling.

"Morning, Chloe, did you get _any_ sleep this time?" Max's voice was timid and sickeningly sweet, the over the top gentleness she couldn't stop from creeping in time after time annoying even her.

Chloe huffed out an irritated breath. "Few hours." Her voice was rough, words forced past parched lips.

When was the last time she had anything to drink? Chloe hadn't been taking good care of herself lately, she had lost weight she couldn't afford to and her strawberry blonde hair had lost it's lustre. Max worried her bottom lip between her teeth, as the words she needed failed to materialize for the thousandth time.

No matter how long and hard she thought, it always ended the same. Chloe laying back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Eyes empty, hollow. While Max sat there uselessly. So far all she had done was eat the Price's food, something Joyce assured her was appreciated, as she couldn't seem to stop making too much for a family of two.

Max still felt like a burden. In the month since William's death the Price household, once a place of light, easy laughter, had been consumed by an echoing empty silence. An absence filling every corner of the familiar home. And Max just stood there, knowing that she needed to do something, but never _what._

There hadn't been nearly as much crying as she had expected. TV and movies had taught her that there should be tears and sobbing, but so far Chloe and Joyce had mostly gone through their days with a dull numbness, caught in the grip of a pain too deep to acknowledge without losing themselves to it entirely.

Joyce spent all her time at home mustering the strength to go into work, returning home each day to immediately shut down. The guilt Max had felt at first, for being a financial burden in such a tough time, had faded to confusion when she learned that her family was sending more than enough money to cover what she was consuming and that William's life insurance had been enough to provide for his family for a good while.

Max didn't understand until she stopped by the Two Whales. Saw Joyce back in the familiar environment. The blank expression fell away from her face. Replaced by a polite, If tense, smile. It wasn't the exuberant warmth she had once filled the diner with, but it was a remarkable change. There, in the diner she had been working at for years, Joyce could let go and simply step into her role. She wasn't a widow, a recently single mother, a woman who now had to make her way in the world alone after having found a partner. She was a waitress and her concerns were the plate in her hands and the customer in front of her. It wasn't glamorous or exciting work. Many, mostly assholes, would say it wasn't even important work. But it was still something for Joyce to lose herself in. A routine. A part of her life that hadn't changed forever, in a single brutal moment.

Framed that way, it sounded like Joyce was abandoning her daughter, and Max had to fight of a stab of self-loathing at the thought. Chloe's mother had done everything she could to reach out, but every time she did the grieving girl turned away. Often literally. While Max just…..sat around feeling sad about it. Like right now.

She wasn't able to fight off the self-loathing at that thought.

Groaning, Max rolled out of bed and stumbled out of the room, careful not to look at Chloe. Until she actually had a way to help, being overloaded with sympathetic grief wouldn't accomplish anything. The Price house needed something more than another woman consumed by sadness.

Padding to the bathroom, Max brushed her teeth before stepping into the shower, doing her best to ignore the slowly growing mess and disorder taking root in the wake of Joyce's grief. It was amazing how much of a mess a bathroom could become in only a month.

The hot water was a wonder, her body feeling like it was coming back to life after the cold stillness of the house she had slept in. Max turned the heat up and tried to think. Trying to find the right words wasn't working. She had been doing it for a month and made no progress. At this point she was clearly asking something of herself she simply wasn't capable of. Social skills had never been her strong suit, this situation was so far out of her reach that ever thinking she could find the right words was a level of arrogance which now appalled her.

She needed a new approach.

Something that played to her strengths? Max snorted. There was no way a photo could help. But what the hell else did she have? For all her childish fantasies of being a super hero, she was just a girl. Not even a particularly smart or strong one. She raised her head, the water stinging her eyes as it washed the tears away.

She scrubbed as hard as she could, scouring her body with a vengeance as she contemplated. Even if she _could_ think of something worth saying, there was no guarantee she would be able to do it right. Anything that could make an impact had a chance to backfire, hurting instead of helping.

Even the book on coping with grief which she had borrowed from the Arcadia Bay Library had been no help. Any single page in that thing would make Chloe roll her eyes. Taken all together, she would probably set the damn thing on fire.

Maybe Max should just wander Arcadia Bay asking people. Surely _someone_ would have an answer. Unless there _was_ no answer.

Max froze, hand extended half way to the tap.

Maybe there was no answer.

Maybe the reason Max couldn't find the right words wasn't because she was useless, a failure of a friend. Maybe it was because there _were_ no right words.

No words could change the fact that a third of the Price family was gone. No words could fill that absence. William had been an amazing husband and an even better father and now he was dead. And there was nothing _to_ be said.

He was gone and never coming back and that was _complete bullshit._ A speech couldn't change that.

There was nothing Max could say. But maybe there was something she could _do_.

Max finished her shower in record time, before towelling herself dry so aggressively she was surprised the towel didn't burst into flames, then struggling into clean clothes.

Leaving the bathroom Max rushed down the stairs, almost losing her balance several times.

The downstairs area was even more of a mess than upstairs. In the living room the scattered detritus of Max and Chloe's last pirate adventure, instead of being properly stowed away, was now buried under the random crap of everyday life, insistently accumulating in Joyce's usually well cared for home. The kitchen was no better with seemingly every piece of cookware, cutlery and crockery the Price's owned piled up and awaiting washing.

She and Chloe had been laughing and cuddling here just a month back. It already felt like a lifetime ago.

Claiming one of the last clean cups, Max filled it with water.

Her path back upstairs was far more careful, her cargo treated with a reverence unwarranted by something so utterly mundane. Standing outside Chloe's room, Max hesitated.

A month spent wondering what to say, only to decide to rely on actions instead of words, and now she was caught wondering what to say _as_ she relied on actions. Ridiculous. Max opened the door and stepped into the room.

Nothing had changed during her shower. Chloe was still lying back on the bed, staring at the roof as if it held the answers to why the world would do this to her or how she was supposed to go on.

"Chloe?" Max asked tentatively, taking a few steps forward.

"Yeah Max?" Chloe said through parched lips.

"I….uhm, I got you a drink."

"Thanks Max." The grieving girl muttered, making no move to take the glass or even sit up.

Max gritted her teeth, stepping to the bedside with as much resolve as she could muster. She held the glass over Chloe's head and began to tilt it.

"Chloe, I am leaving this room with an empty glass, so either sit up and have your water or open your mouth and I will aim as well as I can."

Chloe snorted and rolled her eyes, sitting up and holding a hand out for the glass. As soon as the water touched her lips, her eyes widened with surprise and she tilted the glass back, gulping down eagerly.

As she drained the last drop, she licked her lips and looked down at the glass with a frown, as if finally realizing just how thirsty she was.

"Thanks, Max, I…Thanks. Uhm, would you mind…?"

She held out the empty glass and Max took it with a smile, dashing out of the room and down the stairs. This time she _did_ lose her balance, her feet slipping out from under her as she reached the last step. Max landed on her butt with a thump and a muttered _ouch,_ but wasted no time leaping back up to her feet and into the kitchen to refill the glass.

She couldn't make things better, couldn't bring back William. But she could get her thirsty friend a drink.

Max glanced around the dirty kitchen.

And then she could clean up.

Maybe there _was_ nothing to say. But there was a lot to _do_.


End file.
